making sense of the senseless

CMS Backend (part 2)

Today was a busy day. I pushed out a lot of code and as I did so, I realized this thing needed to be different, that thing needed to be changed, etc. The CMS backend is basically 99% functional at this point. The only thing I am holding off on allowing access to is editing page URLs once they are created. The reason is I really can’t do that until all content is saved in our database and I make some other front-end changes after that. However, everything else should be working. There was a small option I had to add for pages dealing with embedding ColdFusion code.

Embedded Forms, Directories, etc.

Some pages on the website have code something like #REQUEST.sitefeature….#. If you have any code like that on a page, you must check the little box that says “has CF code.” What this will do is put a <cfoutput> tag around your entire content box. There are some caveats with this, but the only one you will probably run across is that if you need to use the # symbol. If you have that box checked and you need to use the # symbol, simply put two of them. That might sound strange, but it’s the way it is at the moment. We don’t use the sitefeatures on many pages, so you probably won’t ever come across this issue. Basically if you check the “has CF code” box, and view the page and something is broken, you might need to email me to ask me what needs to be done.

File Uploading

I have also added in the ability to upload files and it’s pretty seamless and should work in all browsers. I just pushed the code out this morning. On the page editor, next to the image button you will see the file upload button. Upload a single file and you will then be show a link to the file you just uploaded. You can copy that link to be used when you want to make a link to a file or insert an image. You can also click on the link and copy the URL from the browser window. Either way, you will have your link. Close the window where you uploaded and then follow the steps below depending on if you are trying to embed an image, or make a link to a file such as a PDF.

Download File Link

So after you have copied the link text either in the displayed text or through the URL, you can then make a link to whatever you uploaded. Simply write in some text that you want to be the link text. Select it and click on the small link button. (It looks like a chain.) In the Link URL box, paste in the link you copied. Make sure you remove any extra spaces from the ends of the link if you happened to copy some by accident. Change the other settings as you see fit and you are done.

Embed Image

After you have copied the link text either in the displayed text or through the URL, you can insert that image on the page. Simply click on the image button located next to the upload button, and paste in the text you copied in the image URL box. Then give the image a VERY SHORT description. (The description is the alt text and is used by the vision impaired.) You should see the image in the preview box below. You can add a title if you want. The title is the text that shows up if you hover over the image with your mouse. You can now hit insert if you want, or change other settings.

All image settings can be revisited by simply clicking on the image and then clicking on the image button again, or right clicking on the image and selecting Insert/Edit image.

You will have the freedom to change many of the display properties as well by selecting the image after it is inserted and then clicking on the style button. It looks like a button with two A’s on it and it is located to the right of the image button.

Be sure to remove white space from the URL. If you click the insert button and the image disappears and shows a broken symbol, select it again and edit it. You will most likely see a %20 at the end of the URL. This is the program trying to convert a white space to an encoded symbol. Simply remove the %20 from either end.

File Browsing

I am currently now working on the ability to browse through previously uploaded files as well as the ability to delete them. That way you can see images you have previously used and possibly use those rather than upload new/similar ones. This will be helpful to clear some of this data off of the server so it doesn’t just keep getting cluttered. Also, you will be able to replace files. So let’s say you have a Fall Room Schedule.pdf that you use every fall. Rather than upload a new file and have to change file names every Fall, you can just replace the old file with a new one and you are done. No need to change links etc.

That isn’t there yet, but I hope to have it done by the end of the week.